PUBLIC EYE YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE News letter January 2019 Volume 2 Issue No. 1
Editorial Research in Action The School Development and Monitoring Enhancing community ownership Committees (SDMC) are a hallmark of of schools to improve outcomes: decentralised governance under the Right social accountability and capacity to Education Act in India and implemented building through the national programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). This is an effort to The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Dr Satyajeet Nanda Dr Sanjeev Kenchaigol Programme Manager universalise elementary education by Government of India’s lagship Programme Of icer community-ownership of school system. programme aims at universalisation of This programme seeks to provide useful elementary education in the country, provides innumerable and relevant elementary education for all children in the age platforms and new vistas for state governments to enhance group of 6 to 14 years. It is a response to the demand for high children’s educational accomplishments and improve learning quality basic education all over the country. This emerged in line outcomes. The Government of Karnataka has taken this with the second Millennium Development Goals (MDG) related milestone to a new high by introducing School Development and to achieve universal primary education. Management Committees (SDMCs) that allow communities to participate and manage school development at various levels over the last few years. At the behest of SSA, the Public Affairs Centre (PAC) undertook an extensive study of SDMCs in 2018- 2019 to understand if communities are effective in ushering in change. The project research spread across 17 districts, added new insights on the varied yet signi icant gaps in the implementation and functioning of SDMCs. PAC considers the issue of (elementary) education as a signi icant contributor in building people’s capabilities and hence, achieve a decent standard of living. As an active partner in achieving India’s SDGs, PAC focuses on education, particularly elementary education which is constrained by various grassroots level Government Primary School, Nelamangala, Bengaluru Rural, Karnataka factors, including implementation of SDMCs and lacks much Karnataka has been a pioneer in establishing the participatory needed impetus and support from both the communities and governance model through SDMCs formally mandated by its other private stakeholders. In this regard, PAC considers this Gazzette noti ication in 2006. However, even after adoption of project as a step towards understanding the nuances of this model, the state has not achieved all its targeted outcomes. problem on the ground to help look at evidence-based The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Karnataka through its leadership, interventions to bridge the gap. commitment and learning is collaborating with the Public Affairs Centre (PAC) to foster community participation in the To gain a greater grass root level insights and facilitate extensive governance of schools through the SDMCs. This collaboration ield work, PAC has partnered with District Level Partner primarily focuses on improving social accountability; Organisation (DLPOs) and NGOs, which have been working in developing capacities on both the supply and demand sides at the realm of elementary education in different districts in the last mile to improve the quality of education development Karnataka. The organisations that partnered with PAC are: services; promote evidence based and data driven research to SEVAK (Belgaum), Spanadana (Shimoga) BGVS (Raichur) build knowledge and learning; help mobilise collective action to Vishala (Bijapur), Janjagrithi (Mysore) and Chiguru encourage local innovations in school governance institutions (Bangalore). to improve school enrolment, reduce dropout rates and enhance learning outcomes; and to develop a grievance redress Insights mechanism for strengthening SDMCs.
PAC collaborates with SSA, GoK to undertake an evidence-based and community engagement driven project to help improve outcomes of policies and programmes of SSA; enhance governance in and the quality of services of the institutions tasked with delivering school education services; undertake the 17 170 1020 Citizen Report Card and Community Score Card surveys to Districts Schools Population Size evaluate the network of government and private schools and Scope of the SDMC Project enable capacity building in the delivery of services with an The sample size of 1020 population size is distributed among SDMC members, Head masters, Asha and emphasis on vulnerable and excluded population. Anganwadi Workers. YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE Interview How is the PAC- SDMC project helping the government in Dr. M T Reju, IAS the policy making process? State Project Director Sarva Shikshana Abhiyan Every school need more support in terms of inancial and What is Samagra Shikshana programme? technical resources. In turn, schools need to be more accountable and ready to be monitored. The School ecosystems Samagra Shikshana Karnataka, is the new integrated have many stakeholders now. SDMC being, an important programme of erstwhile programmes of Sarva Shiksha institution that can support individual school, department is Abhiyann (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamika Shiksha Abhiyan keen to understand the levels and quality of participation of (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE). Even though it is a SDMC members in various parts of the State. We are keen to centrally sponsored programme with 60:40 sharing of inancial improve the awareness and interest of SDMC members in school support between the Centre and State, most of support comes activities. SDMC members can reach easily to bigger platforms from the Government of Karnataka. The new scheme covers like Grama Panchayats, CSR divisions of the Companies and grades from pre-primary to higher secondary and includes a NGOs. SDMCs can play a major role in pooling the resources for variety of interventions that ensures the quality of learning, infrastructure improvement of schools. I hope PAC's SDMC teaching processes in schools. project will help the department to improve the engaging process of SDMC members, increase the quality of interactions with SDMC members & interaction among SDMC members and motivate the In your opinion, has there been any innovation/break SDMC members to increase their awareness and competency through in the education programme in Karnataka? levels. We are also hopeful that the study will help us to There have been systematic and conscious efforts to improve understand how the SDMC as an institution and SDMC members the learning levels of each and every child in the schools of a s c o n c e r n e d i n d i v i d u a l s w o r k w i t h o t h e r Karnataka. Guruchethana – choice based teacher training institutions/stakeholders related with the Schools. modules, State Achievement Survey that measures the learning levels of every student from 4th to 9th class and thegeneration of reports cards for individual student and each school, Viswasa Kirana – remedial teaching, Ganitha Kalika Andolana – customised programmes for teaching maths in 4th and 5th standards, Odu Karntaka – intervention ensuring the expected numeracy and literacy levels in upper primary classes, Prerana – student motivation programme, TALP – Technology Assisted Learning Programme for digital education, creation of a comprehensive database of students – SATS (Student A chie v ement Tracking System – Shikshana Kirana), start of Karnataka Public Schools, recruitment of 3900 new graduate teachers, revision of Nali-Kali, piloting of teaching English in Nali- Kali method, development of activity and work books for different grades etc. are some of the interventions. There are a Primary Government School, Mahadevnagar, Bijapur District, Karnataka number of speci ic and customised interventions at the school levels too. All these efforts have yielded very good results. Even Do you have any Roadmap that can better improve the though the general image of Government/public education relationship of Government and organisations like PAC? system remains unchanged in public domain, the number of schools offers good quality curricular and co-curricular support As an organisation located in Karnataka, we hope, PAC will help for students are increasing fast. us to understand the ecosystems better and will help us to ind out optimal solutions in capacity building. I really wish organisations that are ready to work with Government had more dedicated people with them spreading across the districts. It is not for entrusting burden on them or for education department of icials including teachers to retreat to behind the curtains, but to manage the newer challenges which are very new to us. The credibility of an organisation, commitment to work with the government and capacity of the organisation to meet their own expenses and technical resources will be crucial in de ining the relationship. I hope, the State of Karnataka in general and the Education department in special will have more support from these kinds of organisations in future so that Government efforts will be better targeted, monitored and presented.
Motivational training in Channenahalli Village, Tumakuru District, Karnataka YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE and SDMCs in the schools have a vital role to play in school Mr. Renni D’Souza Founder, Padi development and Protection of child rights. There are cases of school drop outs, child marriages, children in con lict with law all these cases when they come to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), I feel that the SDMC and the teachers have missed out or Please share a brief background and the journey of Padi not understood their importance in protecting child rights. So if your organisation that works on welfare of children safe childhood is to be provided to every child, the responsibilities lies on the shoulders of school development It was the bankruptcy of education system that triggered off our Committee specially drafting the child protection policy, project on value oriented education. This programme was monitoring the attendance of the children and the performance launched in April 1993. Once the team was recruited, the irst of education. So I feel an active, strong in objective and dedicated few months were spent in getting a general orientation to SDMCs are an instrument for sensitising communities and education especially to education in primary schools. We ensuring the protection of child and reduction in children's concentrated on documenting the articles we had collected on problem. primary education and the situation of education in India, child psychology, community and rural psychology. On the basis of the What according to you are the reasons why SDMCs in some materials available and collected from various institutions and places are inactive? from the government, a study was conducted in South Kanara and Udupi district. The objective of the study was to understand Some of the reasons why the SDMCs in some places are inactive the relevance of curriculum to the family background of are because of ignorance. Some have no clarity on their roles & students. The outcome of the study reaf irmed our belief that responsibilities and in few cases, there is no guidance or the curriculum and the reading materials available for the information imparted by the line Departments (Panchayats, students were not in relation to their day to day living and the WCD, Education, Law & Order). In some instances, there may be materials were insensitive to address the social issues of today. internal dynamics that are at play, in others inancial constraints can play its part and also aspects such as lack of dedication and Instead of exhorting the teachers to introduce values and more fear among the teachers. child-oriented methodologies into their teaching, we believed it will be more practical and acceptable if we provide them with aids to introduce these values and methodologies. This was phase 1 of our organisation, in Phase 2 we worked on textbook guides from 1996-1999. Thereafter we launched our Resource Centre (RC), which was our Phase 3. Phase 4 of our growth we specially focused on gender mainstreaming, community participation, child rights, ownership etc. Our RC was strengthened by our four Community Education Centres (CECs) which consisted of teachers, parents, Community Based Scoping visit Talapady Village, Dakshina Kannada District, Karnataka Organisations, Panchayat Representatives and other NGOs. In our next phase we concentrated on promoting school What kind of a role can civil society play in strengthening atmosphere that was value based, gender sensitive, health and educational institutions to help improve learning outcomes education conscious, child rights assertive through the among children? community-based network in Grama Panchayat Blocks. The 6th phase of PADI saw our 4 extended Educational Resource Centres Civil society members can help strengthen educational were well functioning and were Centres that were empowered institutions to help improve learning outcomes among children to raise the voice for development and changes in both in diverse ways irstly by showing concern and attitude of giving education and protection of children. back to society by way of volunteering, sharing their knowledge, their skills or even through donations. They can also participate We had two Registered District Federations that were and take active interest in both scholastic and actual resourceful and capacitated to work independently. Child development of schools. Furthermore they can be the advocates protection systems such as CWC, JJB, CWO, SJPU, District Child on the ground in ensuring complete implementation of the protection unit, Child Right Clubs at schools, Anti Child Right to Education (RTE) Act. Traf icking Committee at Panchayat level, the state commission for child protection was activated and strengthened at What was your experience while working with a not for pro it state/District/Taluk and Grama Panchayat level. Today PADI think tank like PAC? has intervened in 24 schools and has effective functioning child right clubs and SDMC model. The Panchayats in D.K and Udupi PAC has taken an initiative to collaborate with the Government have become more sensitive towards children needs. to strengthen the community ownership of schools for effective School Development and Monitoring Committees (SDMCs). This As a noted child rights activist and the President of the initiative is extremely important especially if we want to Dakshina Kannada Child Welfare Association, how improve school outcome. PAC, with its team of experts and important is it to involve the community while ensuring development professionals equipped with in-depth knowledge active SDMCs ? has been of great support to us. They have shared their knowledge and thereby strengthened our efforts in districts like Education plays an important role in every child's life especially Udupi and Dakshina Kannada Districts. YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE Voices
Stakeholders Community
BS Arun, Associate Editor, Deccan Herald
Dr. Seema Bhatia, Senior Programme Of icer, IDRC “Even a construction worker takes pride in sending his child to private schools, which, he feels, in turn, lifts his personal status in society. If we make our school on par with private ones, why we need expensive schools? With SDMCs we hope to try bring that change...” Hunumantaiah, SDMC President, Ramnagara District
Dr. Akkai Padmashali, Founder, Ondede
Team from Citizens' Charter National Priority Program from the Government of Afghanistan
To watch more interviews, log on to our “With the help of my new role as an SDMC member, I, as a woman YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/pacindiavideos and Schedule Caste category member have an opportunity to understand school affairs and check that mid-day meals are prepared and served properly.” Netravati, SDMC member, HPS, Banasandra, Turuvekere Taluk, Tumkur District.
Visitors
"Very impressed visit to the campus, the researchers are very eager to know new things. Growing of trees and other progressive steps taken by the management is very appreciable!" B S Arun, Associate Editor, Deccan Herald, 10.10.2018
"It's been a privilege to come to PAC the last 4 years, great bunch of people to work with. I wish you the best of luck with your exciting future!" Dr. Seema Bhatia, Senior Program Of icer, IDRC, 30.10.2018
“Awesome begin here at PAC with friends at PAC and love to be associated with an organisation that stands with social justice!" Dr. Akkai Padmashali, Founder, Ondede, 05.11.2018 YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement
M.C. Gangadhara, Joint Director, Department of Food and Civil G Gurucharan, Director, Public Affairs Centre at the National Skill Supplies spoke on the digitisation and grievance redressal in the Development Corporation (NSDC)- Partners Meet on Transforming Public Distribution System (PDS) system at the Public Affairs India: Empowering Youth for inclusive growth in New Delhi, India Centre Training of Trainers (ToT) programme for the PDS Karnataka in Bangalore, India
Dr Annapoorna Ravichander, Head, Policy Engagement & The Planning Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu invited Communication and Training interacts with 108 newly appointed Public Affairs Centre to make a presentation on the methodology Karnataka Tehsildars at Administrative Training Institute, Mysore and findings from the #PublicAffairsIndex2018.
PAC team at the International Open Data Conference, 2018, PAC team at the Think Tank Initiative Conference, Thailand Argentina Outreach
32 3 3 Publications Conferences attended Workshops attended
5 90 5 Stakeholder Special Gramsabhas Stakeholder Interviews G Gurucharan Director PAC India at the Global Think Tank presentations conducted conducted Summit 2018 in Brussels YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE Visitors Meetings
Kanchan Mani Dixit and Pushkar Prasad Acharya from Institute Harpreet Bhullar, (National Project Coordinator, EU-India for Social and Environmental Transition - Nepal (ISET- Nepal) Cooperation and Dialogue on Migration and Mobility ,ILO DWT visited PAC on possible communication collaborations. for South Asia and Country Of ice for India) along with Dr Annapoorna Ravichander & Ajai Hegde met Mr Kapil Mohan (Director General, Administrative Training Institute) & V. Bhagyalakshmi (Joint Director, ATI), Mysore for a discussion on Organising Training Activities
Good Reads
School Education in India: Market, State and Quality
Authors:- Manish Jain,, Archana A delegation from Citizens' Charter National Priority Program Mehendale , Rahul Mukhopadhyay , me, Afghanistan the senior management team at PAC campus to Padma M. Sarangapani, Christopher share and learn our experiences at the ground level. Winch
Publisher: Routledge India Interactive Session
Right to Education: The Way Forward
Authors:- Vinay Rai, Narendra Kumar
Publisher: Haynes Publishing Group
B S Arun, Associate Editor, Deccan Herald had an interactive session on Writing Op-eds, the do's and don'ts, and audience expectation.
Recognition
From the Editor’s Desk PAC Programme Managers Varsha Pillai and Hari Dilip Kumar Public Eye will be published in January, May and September. were among the 24 chosen Young Leaders as part of the OTT-TTI Do send us your comments/feedback to fellowship. [email protected]. If you wish to unsubscribe please click here YEARS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE